Handoff
by jedi-from-mordor
Summary: An ancient portal between worlds requires a guardian to keep the evils from mixing. When the current guardian dies, a new one must be found.


**HANDOFF**

Jaina Proudmoore did not mean to separate from her men.

Then again, she did not mean to end up halfway around the world, or to become a de facto queen of a small nation under relentless orc attacks.

That she did it all on the words of a mysterious old man made it even less expected.

Finally, until two days ago, everyone who came, including herself, could tell themselves they would get the job—whatever it was—done, and could go home.

Day before yesterday, a badly damaged ship overflowing with refugees pulled into their base on Theramore Isle. Commanded by Paladin Rodan the Just, it brought to her the body of Uther the Lightbringer and terrible news. Arthas returned from Northrend at the head of an army of Undead, killed King Terenas, destroyed Quel'Thalas, and turned the whole kingdom into the horror she had once fought beside him to prevent. Rodan told her he didn't dare leave a chance for a reanimation of someone with Uther's skill, and Paladin rites frowned on burial at sea, so Jaina helped in cremation and interment of an urn with ashes. Her heart still told her that the mysterious prophet was right, that the fate of the world would be decided here, but her mind was rebelling.

More because she knew that after such news, both the refugees and the veterans needed to be given something to do, lest they hurt themselves or others, than truly believing that the 'oracle' some of the locals told stories about would be of any help, she ordered a reinforcement of the mainland group and went there herself to lead the search. They almost lost the race with the orcs to the base of the mountain. Fortifying the paths, she and a small group of selected troops went into the cave network.

And there, Ragni Stonefist stomped _a little too hard_ during a fight with a cave monster, and brought the roof of the passage onto their heads. Jaina summoned four water elementals to prop up the falling rocks, giving the men a precious few seconds to get out of the way. Luck was with them—the only casualty was Ragni's foot, crushed to pulp. They'd fit a prosthetic back at camp, but for now, he was in a bad temper because two soldiers who had to carry him were two fewer fighters.

However, during the collapse, Jaina, in front, saw no choice but roll forward after summoning the elementals. The others, sensibly, fell back, putting her alone on one side of a stone wall several feet thick, able to communicate only by tap code, each note requiring a hard strike to be heard as a minor tick when passed through. She summoned another elemental to hit the wall for her, but was on her own otherwise.

After establishing contact and confirming lack of deaths, Ragni was the first to turn to practical matters. WILL SEND BACK TO BASE FOR DWARVEN SAPPERS.

Jaina decoded the tap series and pointed the elemental with her staff. HOW LONG?

A FEW HOURS.

ACKNOWLEDGED. WILL TRY TO FIND ANOTHER WAY OUT. RETURN IN 12 HOURS IF UNABLE.

GOOD LUCK, LADY PROUDMOORE.

THANK YOU. With that, Jaina got up, lit one of the magical crystals she carried, and pinned it to the top of her head. Having obtained some light, she twisted her shaft to dissipate the elemental and walked carefully away from the wall. For some reason, this part was less inhabited than the areas closer to the surface. She'd only encountered one monster—a nasty thorny creature without clear front or rear—before she came to her first intersection. Two hallways gaped ahead, one inclining up, the other down.

Luck was mixed. She placed a scorch mark on the stone near the ascending corridor, but a dead end turned her back within ten minutes. Frustrated, she put too much power into the next twirl of her staff when making a cross mark at the original to show she'd been there. Something rumbled deep within the mountain. Afraid of causing another collapse, the next mark was toned down, making the black stripe hard to see. This time she sent a water elemental ahead. When it hadn't returned within half an hour, she'd set off on the downward path.

The narrow, nearly straight, and monster-free corridor continued for a long time. After tripping several times, Jaina was forced to concentrate on the uneven floor, so the plunge into thick mist blocking everything from sight came as a complete surprise. She looked around, but the light didn't help at all—it just lighted up the mist itself. She sent another elemental forward, and took time before it returned to observe the surroundings.

They had climbed the mountain from the desert side, and the cave system reflected that, being almost as dry, if not subject to the great heat and cold. But the mist was just one indicator of a connection to a lusher part of Kalimdor—probably the enormous thick forest her people had only time to explore the edges of. Dwarves reported seeing some large shape in the distance from their copters, details shrouded by thick clouds. She forbade them to fly closer for now, needing every person and machine to build and fight. Was it possible the tunnel led deep into that green sea?

Her magic told her she was near a place of great power, but with neither focus nor ease of access. Something completely unfamiliar, probably the province of beings very different from those she knew. She smelled growth, heard running water, and possibly—the mist distorted sound as well as sight—movement of creatures.

The elemental failed to return again. Focusing, she brandished her staff and launched an attack fireball, charming it to glide very slowly—useless as a weapon, letting even a turtle duck out of the way, but a handy guide—she could see a lit-up portion in the fog and follow.

She launched another equally slow fireball very close to the ground, so that whenever it crossed a sizeable bump, she'd hear a short sizzle. She estimated having walked several hundred feet when the mist cleared as abruptly as it began.

She was still in a cave, but one with dripping trickles of water, plant roots sticking out of the ceiling, a damp earth floor, and several small creatures that scampered away when she put the beam of her light on them. Turning her staff, she absorbed both of the fireballs that helped her navigate, and walked forward. There had to be an exit nearby…

A heavy thud came from up ahead. Another. Steps! Some large creature lived in the cave! Jaina raised her staff. The last thing she expected emerged from the darkness.

Heavy spiked boots covered with stylized images of skulls. A billowing cloak of some polar animal. A giant sword, covered in demonic runes, easily wielded with one hand. Her gaze went up to the newcomer's head, where he lifted his hood and grinned at Jaina out of a very familiar face.

"Jaina," Arthas said. "I love you. Come back with me."

"You know I can't," she stammered. "Not after—"

"You have no idea. The power… we could share. Your people will be destroyed." He raised his hand and men lying in pools of blood, orcs with axes standing over them surrounded him. She recognized Ragni Stonefist among them. Another wave, and she saw a gigantic, bare-chested, slobbering orc brute yanking on a chain. The other end of the chain was attached to a collar, wrapped about the neck of a young woman. Jaina stumbled as she recognized herself despite the long braid of blonde hair she'd never styled and that she wore nothing except a pair of gold-strapped sandals.

"Arthas, stop!"

"I can stop this. I can help you. Come—"

"And be turned into the undead?" she demanded, finding her anger and hurling a bunch of ice shards from her staff. Everything vanished. She blinked. Arthas had been as much an illusion as the orc holding her captive. Now that she thought about it, Arthas being here, on another continent, made no sense. Still, the images disturbed her. Conquest by the orcs was not an impossibility, and what if Arthas was in fact their only chance to prevail?

 _Death is better_ , she whispered as she walked ahead. Soon, she was on a set of ascending steps and finally, guided by a sliver of light, passed under the trunk of a very gnarled black tree into the open air.

She was surrounded by swamp, though the tree seemed to grow on a solid enough patch. Rocks of various sizes were strewn about the large clearing. She frowned. The place seemed much gloomier than the forest had appeared from the air, and she'd never seen such thick cloud cover as what spread over her now, making broad day look like twilight.

Her attention was then captured by a sign of fire from the right. The light came from a window of a small domed building, barely as tall as her, overgrown with vines, but obviously inhabited, judging from a stream of smoke emerging from its roof.

She approached carefully. The fire inside crackled. A rather unpleasant smell of overcooked vegetables wafted up to her nostrils, making her turn away for the next breath. When she turned back, the hut's door opened and the owner stepped out. She had to stifle a laugh.

The creature was about two feet tall, with green-gray skin, a huge head with bulges, large eyes, long triangle-shaped ears, and sparse tufts of white hair. It wore a brown robe and held a gnarled stick almost as tall as itself in its left three-clawed hand. It then tilted its head, as if its view of her was better sideways. Its smile seemed bemused.

"Troubles you have, young miss," it said in clear, if leaning towards whispering, voice.

"Uhm… hello," she said uncertainly. "I'm Jaina."

"Different this place is, from your home?" he—the voice seemed male—asked. "Gate between worlds, passed through you have. Power there is in such a place. Great power, great danger. An agent of evil sought out this power, but consumed him it did. His own darkness to the place of power added was."

Jaina remembered her sighting of Arthas. "Met it, have you?" the creature asked.

She nodded. "I saw…" she shocked, willing away her tears as memories of Arthas over the years intruded. "Did you say a gateway between worlds?" She looked up with a new eye. "This isn't Azeroth, then… I guess it makes sense… my father had gone through the Dark Portal in the last war. I'm sorry," she told the creature. "What should I call you?"

"Master Yoda I am. Watch on the gate, I keep."

"Watch against what?"

"Evil in my world, there is," Yoda swept his arm across the sky. "Evil in your world, there is. Meet them, do you want to?"

"Probably not, but doesn't the same argument apply to the good?"

The creature chuckled. "Think yourself good, do you? On what basis, inquire I?"

Stung by the accusation, Jaina stood back, staff at the ready. "You know nothing about me, Master Yoda. I am a sorceress of the Kirin Tor." _I may be the last one_. "We—"

"No accusation meant I, young Jaina," Yoda interrupted. "First to come, you are not, though none from world of Azeroth met I before. Great evil some would bring here. Stopped them I did, when the cave's own darkness did not."

Arthas, Jaina knew, would burst in laughter at the very idea that this creature, barely reaching her waist, could stop 'great evil'. Having had one's prowess underestimated herself, Jaina looked deeper. She didn't want to offend Yoda by making his aura visible without permission, but his behavior told enough by itself. Quiet was clearly something he enjoyed, did not like disrupting, and would impose simply by sheer presence.

"Go back, you must," he said.

"Through… there?" she trembled. "Will I have another vision?"

"Only what you take with you, the cave can make."

 _Not an answer_. She did not say it out loud. For a while, they sat together, listening to the sounds of the forest. Though unfamiliar, they were soothing, especially after many days battle cacophony.

"How often does anyone come through from another world?"

"First in five years, you are. Unknown what causes the portal to open, nor how chosen the world is. Many more worlds are out there, certain I am."

Suddenly, the creature laughed, heartily, deeply, echoes ringing across the swampy forest, scaring dozens of leather-winged fliers out of hiding. "Mysterious the ways of the Force, Yoda as youngling was taught. Forgot the lesson, he had in his age."

"I don't understand," Jaina said, now subject to a gaze of scrutiny.

"Coming, my time is," he said. "Oh, not instantly, not yet. But soon."

"You… you will die?" she whispered, kneeling to meet his eyes.

"The way of the Force it is. Jedi I am, and afraid of death, the Jedi are not. Take over for me, you must."

"Take over—"

"Watch the gate, you must. Keep evils from mixing, _your_ task will be."

"Master Yoda, I can't—"

"Sent for you, the Force did. Only you it must be."

"I don't even know if I can keep the evils of my own world away, much less those of others. Arthas… he _could_ come for real," she rambled. "He'll know, he'll want this—and then all the refugees! I can't abandon my people and live in a cave waiting for years in case someone comes through!"

"Think my entire life spent here, I did?" Yoda retorted. "A way find you will."

She looked him over again. "But why me?" She tried a probing question. "You sound like someone who's been teaching a lot."

"Perceptive you are."

"So again, why me? Aren't there—"

"A student I have."

" _A_ student?"

"Died the others have before I did." Jaina didn't push for details. "Returning here soon he is."

"So why—"

"His own duty he has," Yoda answered.

"As do I."

"Deny that I do not. Perhaps his the duty someday will be. Perhaps to one from world yet different hand over it you will. Yours for now it is."

"And if I refuse?"

"Knowingly let evils pass through, you will?"

Jaina clenched her fists. The _manipulation!_ Now that she knew, she truly had no choice.

"I may fall in battle," she said. "I will have no time to inform anyone."

"A risk I took when on me the duty fell. Not easy to reach from your end, the portal is?"

"Hardly. A mountain inhabited by monsters and surrounded by centaur land, a cave maze, a long descend where no one can see, and the visions." The mind was already racing. "I can place a warning beacon to teleport—" She slammed her forehead. " _How_ did I forget—I would never even get here—"

"Forgot what, young miss?"

She twirled her staff and vanished, reappearing at the mouth of the cave. Another half-twirl, and she was back in front of a surprised Yoda. "If there's some item with magic, or someone I know, I could do much farther—many miles. I never tested the limit, but the Archmage record is four hundred seventy six miles. And I _forgot_ about it when I was twelve feet away from a good friend."

"Forgotten what you could do, did he as well?"

"Everyone in the party, apparently," she laughed. "If they were too embarrassed to tell me, I don't know what I'll do when I get back."

"And think you the will of the Force it is not?" Yoda asked triumphantly. "All living things are bound by it. Led you here, it did."

"I suppose _something_ caused the absurdity. I must go, then?"

Yoda closed his eyes and began turning his head. He finally nodded. "My student is here. Return, you must."

"I would like to meet him."

Yoda frowned. "No. Not yet. Help you, he will want to. Or convince you to help him he will try."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Abandon your cause for a time, afford you can? Nor he. Unfortunate this timing is."

She nodded. _I suppose in a fairy tale I'd find some great aid to me on this detour instead of another responsibility_. "I will take care of the gate after you, Master Yoda," she promised. If she judged right, there was neither formal oath nor any visible tokens—fitting for a duty known to few and taken up by fewer.

She entered the cave and steadied her mind, ready for any horror it might show. Nothing happened, though. Then she took off the adamantium bracelet on which she used her magic to engrave her name—one of the tests Kirin Tor initiates had to pass, and something she was enormously proud to have accomplished at the very young age of 13. She held it and tapped a growth on the ceiling. Within seconds, the bracelet was wrapped around a thick root limb, clearly visible, but not going anywhere. With that, she thought a silent farewell to Master Yoda, and could have sworn she actually heard him reply in her mind. Encouraged, she cast another spell, and traces of her footsteps lit up, easy to retrace back.

The climb exhausted her and, not having the strength to teleport, she fell asleep at the rubble pile, waking up to rhythmic clicks. Realizing what it was, she grunted and summoned another elemental.

I'M HERE, she ordered it to tap out in code through the wall.

STAND BACK, LADY PROUDMOORE.

GOT IT. She retreated. GO AHEAD.

The blast sent rocks hurling everywhere, but Jaina summoned a thick sheet of ice for protection. Then she returned to the happy party. Stonefist was the happiest, holding crutch in one hand and a battleax in the other. She smiled at him.

"Alright, who forgot I could teleport?"

The team looked at each other. "All of us did, Lady Proudmoore," a captain finally managed to say. "Yourself included, it seems."

"I know. Alright, put that behind and let's go. We have an Oracle to find." _It's good to know that there really was a power at work here, rather than my reputation making me the sort of ruler who punishes those who know more than she does. And we must deal with the evils of this world before worrying for others._

XXX

Leia Organa Solo studied the bracelet Luke brought from Dagobah along with the strange beacon and a tale of a vision from the past. Even she felt its presence in the Force—something no inanimate object ever gave her. It didn't feel dark or dangerous—a solid band of an unusual, though known, alloy with cursive engravings. Threepio recognized the script as belonging to a culture predating the Republic, whose artifacts had been found on several Core worlds—including Alderaan, which possibly explained the connection Leia felt.

That was all the information, since the message itself was only a name—presumably that of the wearer. _Jaina L. Proudmoore_. She sighed. She was no archaeologist, and the New Republic had more important mysteries to solve than how something made of metal at most a few decades old got engraved with a script from a culture forty-five _thousand_ years old, and got buried on an obscure planet that just happened to be the home of the last Jedi Master. Still, there was something to it.

"Jaina," she whispered. "Nice name, whoever you are."

As if in response, one of the babies inside her kicked.


End file.
